Hatred of slavery drove Darwin ideas, book says

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - A new book on Charles Darwin says a passionate hatred of slavery was fundamental to his theory of evolution, which challenged the assumption held by many at the time that blacks and whites were separate species.

"Darwin's Sacred Cause" is among the first of dozens of works about the 19th century scientist to appear in 2009, the bicentenary of his birth and 150th anniversary of the publication of his groundbreaking "On the Origin of Species".

Its authors, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, also expect it to be one of the most controversial, because it explores what they call Darwin's humanitarianism and challenges the notion that his conclusions were the result of pure scientific pursuit. "There's got to be reasons why he came to common descent images of evolution when there was no precedent for that in the zoological science of his day," Desmond told Reuters. "It comes out of anti-slavery.

"No one doubts that the Galapagos Islands, mockingbirds, the giant ground sloths and the giant tortoises were absolutely fundamental to his views and what he was interested in.

"But you have to look at some sort of marshalling principle. Every ship carried more than one naturalist generally in those days -- why did none of them come to this kind of common descent view and yet most of them had seen exactly the same evidence?"

Moore said the book did not seek to reduce the argument to "I'm against slavery therefore I'm an evolutionist", adding:

"This is not a reductionist argument. We are making the case that it was necessary for Darwin to believe in 'brotherhood science' in order to see common descent. We can't figure out where else he got it from."

Desmond and Moore return to the naturalist 18 years after "Darwin", their acclaimed biography of the man who concluded all species evolved from common ancestors.